During the House impeachment debate, a representative told the story of a large tree that stood next to a house. The owner noticed squirrels running into a large hole in the center of the tree. His tree was hollow. To allow it to remain meant he and his family were in danger. Removing it was risky because of its potential for collapse. The owner lamented, "I wish I had never seen those squirrels."
Bill Clinton is our tree. In the cool shade of this humming economy, the tree's true character has been revealed, and it is painfully hollow. In this cultural war, the lessons from the media and pundits are directed at the squirrels, Republican nuts who have been labeled mean for their exposure of the tree, obsessed with hollowness, and insensitive to those who enjoy the tree. The squirrels' revelations about the Clinton tree have produced casualties. Newt Gingrich was run out of town because he mentioned perjury. Bob Livingston's transgressions, albeit not under oath, were outed by the ever-pure Larry Flynt.The Democrats baited Livingston in the well of the House on the day of the impeachment vote, "You resign! You resign!" He did. That the Democrats were stunned by Livingston's resignation is at the heart of the real lessons of the hollow tree. That someone feels such a level of shame, puts family above personal drive, and experiences enough remorse to withdraw from the public eye ending a career pinnacle only just begun is incomprehensible to the unprincipled hollow.
There's not a soul on the planet who has not had a misstep. The window on the soul is ethics in the breach. Ethics in the breach is confession, correction and contrition. Clinton doesn't understand contrition; he beats raps. When the Paula Jones case was dismissed, his regret was manifest in a bongo and cigar session caught on camera. When the November elections emboldened him, he gave snotty answers to the House Judiciary's 81 questions. So contrite is Clinton now that the evening of his impeachment saw a White House party for 500 defense fund donors, complete with dancing. If this is contrition, Mardi Gras is a wake.
This syndrome of faulting rules and attacking those who mention them is the Clinton modus operandi. In the 1993 days of Zoe Baird and the nanny tax, the issue was not that this high-paid lawyer didn't pay her household wage taxes, it was that the wage tax rule was silly and demanding compliance with federal tax law in an attorney general nominee was anti-feminist. Mike Espy's problem was not that the agriculture secretary took $35,000 in perks from the very companies he was regulating, it was independent counsel Donald Smaltz's costly investigation. The propriety of renting out the Lincoln Bedroom is not the problem, campaign finance laws are. With this crowd, you follow the rules only if they're worthy of your time.
During the House impeachment debate, the Democrats referred to Clinton as "reprehensible," "liar" and "reckless." They called his conduct "wrongful" and "egregious." A commonly offered compromise: "So, indict him when he leaves office. Just don't impeach him." There were cries of partisan politics along with the moral relativists' plea for the caught and guilty -- the rules are flexible, let's not enforce them this time.
Clinton, the media and others are weeping about the "politics of personal destruction." If we focus on private conduct like this, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin scolds, we will have "flat leaders," whatever they are. The post-impeachment analysis is that folks are just too demanding. Change your standards, not the guy, is the message. The lessons the elite offer focus on anything but values: fidelity in marriage is not character; the media shouldn't bring this stuff up; lying under oath about sex is OK; and Ken Starr is overzealous.
Whatever happened to don't fool around and don't lie as possible lessons in all of this?
In his post-impeachment Rose Garden address, just minutes before the peculiar timing of a halt to the Iraqi bombing but after he shared a laugh with aides not realizing the cameras were on him, Clinton urged a return to our values. What would those values be? Laughing in the face of impeachment? Ignoring perjury? Overlooking obstruction? Unpopular though the position may be, it is not asking too much to have an adult as president.
The Dennis Rodman presidency will continue without the needed annulment. The tree is hollow and dangerous, but it and its defenders risk the future in order to retain its place of adulation. The tree refuses removal and the defenders don't see a problem. It's the squirrels, stupid.
They curse them for their revelation and shoot them for their persistence. The messengers are driven away with cries of malice for the message is too painful. But the squirrels are not driven by malice toward the tree or its defenders; they are driven by truth. That the tree is hollow cannot be changed nor its danger lessened. In the years to come this cultural war will produce fear of speaking up for one's beliefs, slippery notions of deception, and a dismantling of the rule of law. The squirrels should take small comfort in remaining a safe distance when the tree collapses, bringing irreparable harm to the house it was supposed to protect.
Marianne M. Jennings is a professor of legal and ethical studies at Arizona State University. Her e-mail address is mmjdiary@aol.com